Tag Archives: Pelle Peloton

who had their dream. They formed a team that had a mission to create a successful startup company. They did a lot work to reach their dream. Team contacted with the customers and learned the art of selling. At times they were desperate, they did not sell enough and there was no way out of the valley of death. They had to develop their services and concepts. They needed more money from their business angel. However, they believed in themselves and in the future of the company.

This story is a polarized example of elements which should be included in a successful startup. In addition to enthusiasm and a common goal there has to be a great team. A team which tirelessly strives to their common goal.

The first element, which needed in a startup team, is the mother/dad of the idea – Gyro Gearloose. Present-day Gyro Gearlooses are often the people who are capable to write the computer language (coders/programmers). Gyro Gearloose is a character who can´t do everything in a startup. That’s why Gyro needs the help from a contemporary Little Helper. The Little Helper is the character for designers. They help Gyro to design the program/application in such a way that John Doe (normal citizen) can use it.

When Gyro Gearloose and the Little Helper have found each other, they need some marketing- and sales-oriented people to seek all the customers and to all the deals. Thus, they have a much-needed economic fuel for the company. Namely, Gyro Gearloose and the Little Helper don’t often have the time/desire/capabilities to sell and to do all the marketing stuff. In the energetic and positive marketing and sales team we have Dewey, Huey and Louie – of course!

In the end, Gyro Gearloose, the Little Helper, Dewey, Huey and Louie need some financing to realize their dream. At the start of a startup they don’t have any paying customers yet. No panic! For this need assistance will brought by Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge – in the Finnish level – can be e.g. a business angel, banks, Tekes, ELY-Centers, Kansalaisrahoitus, Finnvera, crowdfunding platforms etc. Nowadays, Scrooge McDucks are very accurate for teams of startups. The team can be a much more important element than the original idea or products. That’s the reason why you should really focus on building a great team!

PS. Remember that this story was a polarized example of building a startup team! 😉

When I agreed to write this blog post about a week ago, I did it for the same reason that I sometimes wonder whether I should start my own personal blog. The reason is that when I read news about recent politics or some other events concerning society, I almost always get pissed off and I would like to have some way of saying my opinion. In other words, I enjoy ranting about stuff. However, this week was an exceptional one in my life, since I wasn’t pissed off about anything. That however poses a problem concerning this blog post because now I don’t have a topic for this.

Then I started to think about alternative topics and realized that I definitely should introduce myself and my role in MikkeliES, since it happens to be quite special. I’ve had the honour to have my role in the board of MikkeliES named after me. So, Hello my name is Heikki Kurhinen and my role in MikkeliES is “heikki”. For people who know me, what I do is quite obvious, but for others it may need some clarification. Basically what I do is I’m the nerd of the board. If we need a new app for something or some technical assistance I’m your guy.

My background is that I’m a generalist of IT and a specialist of programming. To clarify a meaning of that, I currently work as a programmer but I have a background in electronics and embedded systems. I’m also interested in hardware, robotics and basically everything you can find in 90s nerd movies.

So what am I doing in a entrepreneurship society? The short answer is that at some point I want to be part of building something cool, something new and something awesome and I feel that having your own, or being part of, a startup is the way to achieve that goal.

Startup Spirit in Mikkeli

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